


The Rose

by Ghislainem70



Series: Overcome [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Bondage, Bottom!Sherlock, Cock & Ball Torture, D/s, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Impact Play, Knife Play, M/M, Nipple Clamps, Nipple Play, PWP, Rope Bondage, Smut, crop, top!John, tw reference to offstage cutting, tw reference to offstage drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:55:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70
Summary: An unusually large, very heavy box rested in front of the fire. Sherlock knew it was heavy because he had tilted it, just a little, to test the weight. John hadn’t mentioned the box, although he had given it a brief but serious look before ascending the stair to his room. Therefore, Sherlock did not open it. If John had wanted him to open it, he would have said so. The reverse was also true. Not having told him to open it, it followed that John did not want him to touch it. . .A purely shameless BDSM pwp, commissioned for the benefit of the homeless help fund for @rebuilding221b and @9wavesfibers (link: https://rebuilding221b.tumblr.com/post/174575382536/2-weeks-to-get-2000-dollars-as-some-of-you-know-my ) by a dear reader who wishes to remain anonymous.





	The Rose

 

 

 

An unusually large, very heavy box rested in front of the fire.

Sherlock knew it was heavy because he had tilted it, just a little, to test the weight. John hadn’t mentioned the box, although he had given it a brief but serious look before ascending the stair to his room. Therefore, Sherlock did not open it. If John had wanted him to open it, he would have said so. The reverse was also true. Not having told him to open it, it followed that John did not want him to touch it.

It was taking longer than Sherlock was prepared to wait, really, for John to return. He considered following John up the stair, but decided this was a sort of test. He sighed. He wasn’t very good at patience, and John was schooling him, with sporadic success, in this regard. John would be pleased, he thought, if instead of pacing around the box and fidgeting with it, with tipping it, almost— but not quite— shaking it, he found Sherlock seated in his chair, waiting quietly.

Tantalised and already mildly frustrated, he sat.

There was a faint, odd rustling, almost hissing sound floating down from above. Hiss, pause. Hiss, pause. Hiss, pause. Then a soft thunk of something weighty hitting the floor. His ears strained as he tried to identify what it was. It was familiar, he felt he ought to easily be able to discern what it was, the sound was distinctive. But the box, the tantalizing box, was too distracting. Then the familiar sound of John’s firm step on the stair pushed everything else to the background.

Nothing mattered but John.

# # #

John was dressed in dark trousers and dress shirt, very dark blue, which brought out the depths in his dark eyes, stormy and changeable. He preferred to dress somewhat formally for these occasions. He also preferred Sherlock fully naked, which he was. He carried a small, workmanlike-looking duffle bag that Sherlock had not seen before. This he set down next to the box.

John withdrew a familiar pocket knife from his pocket and with a few precise cuts, unfolded the box so that it fell apart like a flower opening. Within was something substantial, made of black leather. It shone in the firelight.

“Touch it,” John said.

Sherlock stepped forward and inspected the object, which in fact was a bespoke leather-upholstered bench with what looked like an intricate system of adjustments. It felt luxuriously soft and yielding under his palm. He ran his long, sensitive hands over the surfaces, tugged at the steel rings, felt the stitching with his fingertips, grasped the wooden legs, prodded the mechanisms underneath.

John watched, serious and intent, appreciating the careful exploration, imagining, perhaps, that it was his own body being so thoroughly explored. It was just the correct height for him to straddle, with a brace for him to lean upright against, or if lowered, to allow him to lay prone, and similar supports for the legs.

They had been making do with the ordinary furnishings in the house. This was different. Sherlock drew in a breath. He felt a little proud, which inevitably was also a little arousing. John wanted to use him on this very fine bench, had put a great deal of thought and care into the proportions and craftsmanship of the thing.

“It’s . . . beautiful, John.”

“I hoped you would think so. Now sit, facing me.”

Sherlock obeyed, and John adjusted the bench so that he could lean against it, his hips, cock, torso, and cheek all resting against the soft leather. A metal ring was cold against his thigh until John gently moved his leg away, just as he wanted it.

“Stay still.”

John brought the duffle bag, and unzipped it. Sherlock was glad that he wasn’t blindfolded, but it didn’t matter. John’s brief movement of his leg had given him the necessary clue to what was in the duffle, and he was proved right.

It was a length of rope, neatly coiled in a figure eight and tied in the centre. That was what the sound upstairs had been — John had been carefully measuring out and coiling this rope.

# # #

The rope was a surprise. Not the fact of it, although John had never bound him with anything but padded cuffs before now, but the colour. It was a very particular shade of crimson. The colour of fresh blood.

John laid the rope on the floor, and withdrew the next item from the duffle. Long, glittering silver shears with heavy polished blades and bright red handles. Sherlock’s eyes darted back and forth between the red and the silver.

“Fireman’s shears,” John affirmed, slowly opening and closing them. They made a sharp and rather alarming snick. “Never been used. If I use them tonight— which remains to be seen— I will never use them again. Because I will only ever use a blade on you that is perfectly sharp.”

Sherlock’s heartbeat quickened, the sound almost too loud in his ears. John knew he had difficulty with bondage. Soft cuffs, yes. Handcuffs, even. Subconsciously he knew he could get out of them if he needed to, although John would never ignore his safeword.

But complex rope bindings, and even more restrictive immobilization like the tightly strapped latex body suit he had tried, once, long ago, in another city far away, and nearly lost himself when it took too long to release him. He had told John these stories, because John had demanded it, firmly but with great understanding and kindness. He wanted, he had said, to truly know the outlines of his boundaries, even better than he knew them himself, without relying only on his safewords.

And so, John knew very well that the sight of the rope would make him. . . uneasy. Not frightened, he was never frightened of John, no matter how hard he pushed him. Quite the contrary, the harder he pushed, the more Sherlock trusted him. He instinctively knew John would never take him anywhere that he wasn’t prepared to go.

John was uncoiling the rope, methodically and with careful attention to any possible flaws.

“I’m making sure it’s as sound as it ought to be. I don’t want to leave a single scratch or rope burn.”

“Have you. . . used the rope. . . before?” His pulse gave a hard jolt, imagining John tying up some other sub. He hated these thoughts and tried to push them away, but they shimmered behind his eyelids for a painful moment.

John met his gaze calmly. “I’m allowing you to question me because I know -- that bondage is challenging for you. The answer is yes, and no. No, this rope has never been used before. But I’ve examined it now, and it’s perfectly sound. And yes, I have used rope before. And you know better than to ask about that.”

Sherlock bit his lip. John sounded almost stern.

“I’m sorry. Sir.”

John’s eyes narrowed and he put a firm hand on Sherlock’s bare shoulder. “Not ‘Sir.’ I’ve told you that, too. 'John.' Are you nervous?”

“Yes. John.”

“If it makes you feel better,” John said carefully, “I used rope like this in Afghanistan. In the caves.”

# # #

Sherlock’s skin was already starting to tingle a little with anticipation. John pressed him back against the bench.

“I believe you’ll feel very differently in a few minutes,” John said, eyeing Sherlock’s supine figure with undisguised possessiveness. He caressed and squeezed Sherlock’s thigh, fingertips grazing the edge of his cock before traveling down the firmly muscled calves. Sherlock watched, avid.

John knelt between his legs and began affixing the first knot around his ankle, attaching it to the padded leg of the bench. Sherlock’s cock jumped to life just to see John’s silver-gold head bent in close between his legs, fantasizing that he might actually take his cock into his mouth. John was generous with his mouth and was often driven to tease him when he was bound and helpless.

“I know what you’re thinking,” John said without looking up. “You’ll have to earn it tonight.” He sent a teasing hot breath ghosting along his perineum, and Sherlock quivered just as he realized that John had bound the other ankle.

The rope felt very different to cuffs, or even silk or velvet bindings. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sensation. The ankles have almost no flesh around the bone, and therefore he could sense every groove in the synthetic fiber, and the bulk of the knot that John had tied with care just above his ankle bone. It felt very secure. He wriggled his feet experimentally, and John made a disapproving sound, and so he stopped. Wriggling only made the rope feel tighter. Quite possibly, the knots were deliberately designed to do just that.

His legs were spread wide, almost but not quite uncomfortably so. His arse was poised at the end of the bench as he leaned securely against the padded back, so that if John pleased, he could open him up, with his fingers or his cock or anything else that he might have brought in that interesting bag. Ordinarily John loved to look at him like this, sometimes for longer than he thought he could stand. Tonight, John was concentrating on the intricate pattern of the rope and knots over his fair skin.

“I’m leaving four fingers’ width between the knots. _Concentrate_. Feel your skin under the rope, feel the bare skin next to it.”

Sherlock looked down at his legs, intricately trussed with knotted ropes in a long line from his ankle, up his calves and up his thighs. The knots formed a new sort of architecture, a strange sort of spinal column, created by John’s surgeon’s hands, molded to his pale flesh.

Along the rope, new sensations were springing up, compression, tingling, a feeling of both being wrapped up and exposed at the same time. And of course, the feeling of helplessness.

He wished that John would stop and caress him, help him settle, and of course, John understood, maybe heard the uncertain little hum in his throat, and so he did, gently petting and stroking along his bound legs, over his belly, up his chest and to the crook of his neck, where he squeezed a little.

It felt reassuring, and Sherlock began to enjoy the squeeze of the rope, as though it were an extension of John’s fingers.

# # #

John finished the knots at the tops of his thighs, and suddenly everything felt tighter. The skin under the rope felt warm and compressed, not painful but very firm and secure. The texture of the rope was smooth, almost slick, but it still, he could tell, was leaving little imprints all over his skin. The unbound strips of bare skin between the rope tingled, feeling even more nude than without the rope, which was an odd sensation. He never minded being naked for John, or clothed, all that mattered was if it pleased John, and he could tell from the gleam in John’s eye and the tender stroking of his fingertips that he was very pleased with the look of him, the brilliant red cord contrasting vividly against pale pink and white skin.

But the ropes stopped just short of touching his balls or hole, and he caught his breath, wondering if John would bind him there, too. And then John was pouring lube into his palm to warm it, and carefully stroking without any undue stimulation down his cock, over his balls, and between his buttocks, but even with such restrained touches, he was hard, aching. He reflexively tried to widen his legs to coax John to keep on with this delicious teasing, trying to angle his arse a bit higher, wishing John would use his fingers there. The rope simply made such moves impossible.

John’s lip curled up as he watched Sherlock’s minute struggles, completely quelled by the firm grip of the knots.

“Not so easy, is it? You’ll have to be patient— whether you feel able to, or not.”

###

There was a full-length mirror that John had surprised him with, picked up at a stall on the cheaper end of the Portobello Road, leaning against the opposite wall. But it was tilted so that he couldn’t really see himself. He was almost certain John had moved it so that he couldn’t.

“John. I want to see.”

“Not yet. Not till you’re finished.”

“Finished,” he repeated softly. He was nearly completely trussed with the red cords, intricate knots making it impossible to move his arms, legs or torso, entirely criss-crossed now with knotted rope. He could breathe, of course, and could perhaps twist an inch, probably less, which made the rope squeeze and tighten over his skin in interesting ways. What more could John do to make him “finished?”

John cupped his face in his hands tenderly, hands that were so much smaller than his own, and capable of things that his were not. He could pull a trigger without so much as a tremor. He could stitch up wounds. He could make him come in an instant, and deny him for hours. He could beat him till he screamed, and make him weep for more.

“You’re doing so well, love,” John said. “Almost there.”

John began a final looping of the rope, his face so close to Sherlock’s that he could study the flecks of dark color in his eyes, dark blue and dark green and flecks of gold, see the faint sheen of perspiration on his forehead, the glint of his long eyelashes and he carefully wrapped a rope around his forehead, securing his head against the padded backrest and his heartbeat accelerated, a delicate hammering in his temples, in the crook of his neck, in the pulse in his groin that was already feeling congested and wanting where the ropes made a frame around his jutting cock.

It was hard for him to bear having his head bound or confined in any way. It was worse somehow than being blindfolded, even. It somehow amplified the sensation of helplessness. John knew this very well. His eyes lit with dark delight.

###

John ran his thumb over his lips, carefully tracing the upper lip as he loved to do, then the plump lower lip, lingering over the faint mark of a recently healed cut from a split lip earned in fight during a case. John’s brows drew together in a frown.

He was making a very intricate length of knots now.  
Sherlock wondered if John was going to punish him for his recklessness in allowing himself to be hurt like that.

“John. It. . . won’t leave a scar. It’s almost gone now.”

“But I can see it. I remember what it looked like. It tore the skin of your lip, right here. It was bleeding. I don’t want anyone to mark you but me. I thought you understood that. You shouldn’t have rushed ahead. Open your mouth, Sherlock.”

He obeyed, and John looped the elaborately knotted length of rope between his lips. It felt thick against his tongue, and somehow made him think of a restraint for an animal, a wild horse or vicious dog. John did not ever debase him in that manner, but something about it felt so different to an ordinary gag, crude and raw, that he blushed, humiliated.

“You don’t like that,” John stood back to evaluate his work. “Is it too tight? Does it hurt?”

He shook his head in the negative.

“Try to say your safewords.”

“ _Yhew-wow. Rhedth_.” He was able to articulate over the rope, clumsily enough, but he could make himself understood.

“Yellow, red. Good.”

John straddled him on the bench, the full weight of him pressed against his bound thighs, his exposed cock. He couldn’t help trying to press up, to maximize friction. Instead of scolding him, John took a nipple between his finger and thumb, the sensitive left nipple, and pinched it hard. He stopped wriggling. He had barely moved a quarter of an inch, he reckoned. Pointless. _Was this what it felt like to be trapped in a spider’s web_ , he wondered idly, then guiltily shut away the inevitable association that spider’s webs and Moriarty still possessed in his mind palace, before John could see it in his eyes. He always could.

“Hmmmmm,” he moaned against the rope gag. If John really didn’t want to hear him at all, he would order him to remain completely silent, which was possibly the most difficult of all challenges. It took almost nothing, even as well as they knew each other now, for John to make him cry out, in pleasure, pain, and most intoxicatingly, that perfect suspended moment where the pleasure and the pain were in equipoise.

John tugged a little at the gag, bent in close to stare into his eyes, pupils fluttering and jittery, and slowly pulled it ever so slightly taut. His pulse hammered at the overwhelming sense of captivity, the throb thumping into his temples, against the firmer circle that bound his forehead, and all of this delicate network of pulsing blood in his head and the crook of his throat flowed straight down, down to make his cock swell and jerk. John looked down at his bare cock, watched it lengthen and twitch with a confirming growl, “hmmmm,” at the back of his throat.

“Next time, maybe, I’ll pull it around your throat, make you see stars,” he said, voice gravel-hard, lost in whatever he was imagining now as the threat of loss of oxygen hovered there between them.

Then John pressed a kiss to his temple, slipping to the shell of his ear, warm breath tingling in that sensitive place, pulling the rope a fraction more between his teeth and over his tongue.

“All right?”

“Hmmm-hmm,” he murmered against the rope. His lips were wet now around the edges from the rope forcing them slightly apart, and he took a gulp of air, dizzy from breathlessness, a hint of sparkle behind his eyelids. John kissed him with a lick and then tongue forced between his lips as far as the rope would allow as he tried to press up into the kiss. The rope bindings made it nearly impossible, and being held back from so much as a fractional response to John’s attention, his mouth and hands, left him with nothing to do but moan against the rope gag and feel his cock bob, twitching and neglected between his bound thighs. John’s mouth was working on his, biting and licking wetly, clearly aroused by Sherlock’s inability to move, making his mouth wet and slack and needy around the knotted rope against his tongue.

John pressed his tongue in harder, suggestively, over the knotted rope. He stretched his mouth wider to invite him in, wishing it was his cock.

“I know what you’re thinking. Not yet.”

Now John was moving away, bent over, looking for something in his bag. As warm and yearning as he had been, just as abruptly he felt abandoned, exposed, weak. He knew John wanted him to be patient, to be still within himself, to let himself yield to the crude sensations of being bound and helpless. When John was touching him anywhere, it centered and grounded him like nothing else in the world, and he had tried it all, drugs and cutting and sex with doms who wanted only to break him while he did his very best to provoke them to do it.

Now there was just the padded bench, the ropes holding him everywhere, the skin between the ropes sensitive, almost an itch — which he knew was just his brain filling in sensation where there was none.

_Yet._

# # #

John was holding up fine black chains in his line of sight. Sherlock swallowed hard. At the end of the chains were clover clamps with tiny white rubber pads, giving them a deceptively mild appearance. John ignored his eager gaze, the whine over the gag, and returned to pinching his nipples very hard between his thumb and forefinger. The pain was sudden, sharp and delicious, but nothing to what he would soon feel. This pinching was a kindness, to prepare him for what was coming.

“Breathe,” John said firmly as he swiftly attached a clamp to first his right, then his left nipple and the pain bloomed, in his nipples, across his chest, twinging down into his belly. It felt like being prodded with a tiny, hot blade. He gave a strangled gasp around the rope gag. It was extraordinary, it was unbearable, and he was helpless to adjust any part of his body to relieve or accommodate this pain. Which was perfect.

John smiled down at him, wolfish. He braced himself for John to pull on the chains, but John surprised him by dangling a second chain so that he could see it clearly.

John knelt between his legs, but Sherlock was under no illusion that John would lick or suck him there. His warm hand held his balls, squeezed a little.

“This would be easier for you. . . if you weren’t already so hard,” John chided him, but Sherlock could hear the admiration and lust in his voice. “You love this,” he declared, not waiting for Sherlock’s ardent “Yes, I love it,” over the gag. He pulled down carefully on his balls to stretch the thin skin, pressed it between his fingers. Sherlock was panting now. First one, then another clamp, the pinch jolting his sensitive skin. He gasped.

The nerves were just getting accustomed to the initial shock and the incredible, exquisite pain in his nipples and balls was building, eclipsing everything but John’s dark eyes locked on his, fascinated, drunk with every grimace and groan. For a few precious moments there was nothing but John and the pain, and he floated on it, almost blissful on the edge of agony.

###

John was busy with his hands again, and there was a soft snick of metal as he clipped the chains together through a ring that he gently rested on Sherlock’s heaving chest. Now the chains were connected, nipples to balls, and Sherlock was sweating under the ropes, falling back to earth where four points of almost overwhelming pain anchored him through the chains to John.

John stood and adjusted the mirror so that he could finally see himself. John had wrapped him in an intricate criss-cross pattern of red ropes against the bench, his legs splayed open wantonly, his dark curls crowned in red rope. He could see the indentations where the rope compressed his pale skin. The black chains looked decorative, like jewelry.

He had once seen an Orientalist painting in a Turkish diplomat’s mansion in Mayfair. An odalisque, draped so that the figure was of indeterminate sex, all in tones of crimson and black. These ropes and chains made him feel like that, like something luxurious and precious, and he could see in John’s face that he felt this too, in a life that had had little of art or luxury before Sherlock Holmes, that they were building something decadent and rare, and theirs alone.

John moved between his spread legs, and with his free hand brushed the damp curls back from his forehead. Then he gripped Sherlock’s thigh where the rope pressed down, down, compressing his fair skin and corded muscle and sinews into something malleable. Like clay, or marble. John nodded. “Yes. I’m shaping you. Because I want to, and because you need me to.”

John would never stop being dazzled by Sherlock’s brilliance, but when they were together like this, it was Sherlock who was dazzled.

“Look at yourself. You see it. So beautiful.”

He could see himself in the mirror. The ruddy flush rose from under John’s grip, up his thighs, across his chest, over the thin skin of his throat, and the blood rush made the skin under the clamps that much more tender, that much more swollen. Sherlock whined at the delicious pain. John tugged lightly on the chains, and by clever design the clamps tightened reflexively. Intricate tendrils of pain flooded his nerves like divine fire. Sherlock shouted behind the gag. There was nothing but John, John’s hand on the chains, and four points of fire that John was using to make him try to rise up through his bonds. The pain was forcing him to gasp for air a little over the gag. His cock bobbed, confused and burning, tormented between the opposing sensations and the anticipation of what was to come.

John dropped the chains. The abrupt release of tension on the clamps forced blood to flood back into the pinched flesh, bringing another wave of pain and heat, sharp and consuming and a roaring in his ears so loud that he didn’t hear his own cries. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking about what John might do next, he should try to stay in the moment— stop analysing, observing, stop deducing— and let himself float on the powerful powerlessness of his predicament.

_Predicament?_

Where did that come from? Why did he feel he was in a predicament? The pain truly slowed his thought processes to a remarkable degree, which was a blessing. Without it, it was impossible for him to feel, not like this. But he was watching John like a proverbial hawk now, all huge glistening eyes in a pale face bounded in red ropes, and his sluggish brain finally registered what he had observed a moment ago.

While he was writhing fruitlessly against the agony of the clamps, John had brought forth new tools from his bag.

One was an odd-shaped crop with a novel twist to the tip.

The object other glinted, silvery in John’s grip. A knife. Short, slim blade. Not nearly formidable enough to cut through his intricate and very secure bonds. That was not what John wanted the knife for.

 _Yes_ , Sherlock thought. _I’m in a predicament now._

###

He grimaced and bit at the rope gag, unconsciously humming low. John’s mouth clenched and turned up as he noted the recognition light up Sherlock’s eyes.

“Shhhh. Tonight I’m going to make you even. . . more beautiful.”

The reflection in the mirror showed he was already looking a bit used, eyes stretched wide and dark, mouth wet-looking and obscene with the rope stuffed between his lips, skin slick with perspiration from the pain and from unconsciously straining against the ropes, curls wilting down over his forehead again, his cock still hard even after the jolt from the clamps, all by the elaborate criss-cross of knotted red cords.

Sherlock immediately stilled, watching John, unblinking. John watched back, admiring the effect of seaglass eyes being swallowed by the dark, an eclipse. He leaned in, rested their foreheads together, his warm breath caressing him intimately, the slight tug on the chains stoking the hot pain under the clamps.

“And I’m going to do that by teaching you not to disrespect my orders. You ran ahead, let that man strike you in the face, on your mouth. After I told you to wait, so that I could protect you. Don’t I always protect you, Sherlock?”

Sherlock murmured “Yes,” sloppy over the gag. Because it was true, it had always been true. He could see that John was thinking of all the times he hadn’t let John protect him, when John desperately needed to, and he couldn’t stop thinking of them either. Tears welled up, and John brushed his thumb under his lashes, wiping them away, softly kissing the corners of his eyelids, breathing in the scent of him, soap and faded cologne and sweat and desire and pain, the unique scent of Sherlock yielding everything of himself up to him. John licked and bit at his lips, hard and masterful, drinking in his desire and his pain, and it felt as intimate and invasive as being fucked, and his prick swelled painfully as he whimpered under John’s mouth, tingling and shivering with apprehension.

John ran the hand with the knife tenderly along his throat, letting the edge just whisper against the thin skin, hovering above the artery just long enough to see the heartbeat jump before skimming his collarbone, where it would take nothing at all to nick the skin over the bone and draw blood, then lower, across his pectorals, following the boundaries of the red ropes, every gesture threatening to cut. John knew exactly how to use it, better even than Sherlock himself. “Surgical precision” took on an entirely different meaning when applied to a thoroughly bound sub with a racecar-engine brain and a soldier-surgeon-dom who loved him with a love strong enough and deep enough to give him the kind of sensation he desperately craved, and to teach him to yield to it.

Sherlock slowed his breathing, hypnotized, watching John’s compact, adept hands at work. John was a surgeon, a soldier and a surgeon, and he would never let the knife slip. He knew that. Just as the thought floated there, John circled the tip of the knife around the reddened areola beneath the clamps, slightly disturbing the delicate chains again to tug a bit harder on the thin skin of his balls again, and his chest and balls were caught between the icy twinge of the knife and the fire under the clover clamps. His swelling cock and heavy balls pulled the clamp just a bit more, and just like that— the torment tripled. Something warm trickled on his belly and couldn’t move his head enough to look down to see— had John cut him, was he bleeding, or was it precome running down his belly? He didn’t know, and the not knowing drove him to the edge of panicked need. His cock was throbbing in time to the deep, sharp, fascinating pain blooming in an ever widening circle from his clamped nipples and balls, and John didn’t seem to be planning to do anything to relieve him.

It occurred to Sherlock that John really intended to teach him a lesson. That he probably wouldn’t allow him to come. John’s cock under his trousers looked thick and uncomfortably tight under the creased fabric. He wished John would let him touch, he wanted the smell of his warm skin, the taste of the stretched skin of his cock, head bumping the back of his throat. He suddenly wanted it, craved it more even than the rope and the clamps, and the inability to touch John multiplied his frustration and pent-up desire. He bucked under the rope, and didn’t move more than an inch.

He was starting to feel a bit. . .  claustrophobic.

###

John was probing with knife tip around the sensitive skin at the crook of his thigh and hip, testing, grunting to himself a little at the back of his throat at the evidence of what Sherlock felt, the exposed flesh quivering between the rope bindings, cock hard, plum-coloured, glistening. The skin at the junction of his hip was a bit plumper than the rest of his impossibly long, lean legs. The tip of the knife came close to a tickle, which Sherlock could not abide under any circumstance, and John knew this but persisted with the gentle, deliberate prodding until Sherlock, close to hysteria at the thought, began to imagine that he would have to utter his cautionary safeword, _“yellow,”_ even though nothing John was doing at the moment was technically painful and his cock was begging, almost screaming for more, and he imagined that without the cords to hold him together he would simply fly apart at the seams.

Whereupon John, ever vigilant to Sherlock’s slightest reaction, instantly withdrew the knife, watching him covetously with that intent, darkly carnivorous glint in his eye.

“Look at you. I haven’t even touched that pretty cock of yours, but if I ordered you to come, you’d do it now, right now. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. You. . . you know.” He swallowed, the pale column of his throat bobbing, blush creeping up. “That I would. John.”

“That’s right. I do know. I always know. But I want you to wait. Close your eyes. And breathe, Sherlock.”

Sherlock immediately took a deep breath, in out, in out, his ribs tightly clasped by those barely yielding crimson cords, lowering his lids slightly at first because he wanted to keep watching, because with every passing moment John was becoming more that man that he kept under such precarious check in their “normal” daily lives, the man that Sherlock was always astonished that others stupidly could not see. John surprised him then by withdrawing the knife without leaving more than the hairs-breadth of a scratch. John stood over him now, his chest heaving, his fist lightly swinging the odd-shaped crop that drew his eye so, but he closed his lids and bit his lip, suppressing the temptation to leave them open the barest slit so that he could see between his lashes. John would know.

“I brought you a present. I had it made specially. It’s called ‘the rose.’”

It was true, the tip of the crop was shaped a flattened coil in the shape of a rose that was roughly, Sherlock had already calculated, the size of John’s clenched fist. The thing was deceptively old-fashioned looking, like something from a secret Victorian diary about licentious lords and rakes, valets and housemaids.

The thing was not, surprisingly, black or even red like his knotted bonds, but woven of mixed creamy white and ruddy pink, and Sherlock flushed up hot, blotches flying up over his belly, his collarbones, spots on his cheekbones, to realise that John had had it made up to closely match his the color of his skin, after he had whipped it. “ _Ahhhh_ ,” he gasped, already imagining it striking his bare flesh, the divine sound it would make, the impact as it shook him and took him down.

He was bound very securely to the bench with his legs spread and his feet resting on the floor. His nipples and balls were on fire from the clamps, the pain long since expanded to an even pool of flaming torment across his chest, down into his belly, up his cock to the very tip, his balls twitching and hot.

John was running the flat end of the rose over the quivering skin at the crook of his hip where the knife had hinted at danger moments before, letting the end of it catch and snap just lightly as it ran over the knotted ropes, a promise of what was coming. It jostled the chains provocatively, and he whined, panting, sweating for it. He could smell his own salty tang at his throat, across his chest and lower, from between his legs, that dark and pungent scent of desperation. Every inch of his exposed skin was tingling, shivering, waiting, yearning for that slap and sting.

The rose withdrew, and he heard the rustle of fabric from John’s shirtsleeve as he unbuttoned and pushed up his cuffs, up above the elbow, and swung with a hissing sound like no other.

“Ah-hh-ungh, f-fuck,” he groaned sharply, inarticulate tongue slavering over the ropes now, the flat supple rose slapping him hard and sharp on the tender inner thigh, where there was barely room between the ropes. The sound somewhere between the thud of a paddle and the crack of a crop and the impact was overwhelming, and John hadn’t even struck him very hard. Yet. The pain and the afterburn were instant, spreading like he had been bitten by something venomous, spending over his tormented balls like acidic fire, fueling the blood in his cock like a match to gasoline. He thought he might have come.

“Open your eyes.”

He looked. He was leaking so much that the beautiful red cords were dark with it, and his belly glistened. They watched the bright red fade to reveal a precise imprint like a hazy rose tattoo on his pale inner thigh.

John ran his thumb lightly over the burning mark, admiring the stunning shape of the rose.

“Fuck. That’s so— you’re perfect, so perfect. So good for me like this. The way you take it. The way you _want it._ Do you see it? It’s my mark on you.”

“Yes. God, yes.” He was burning, he was ascending on a cloud of pain and desire.

“No one else’s. Not ever.”

He mumbled, stunned, and might have said, “yours,” or maybe, “more.”

###

John turned a hidden lever under the bench and suddenly Sherlock glided backward until he was lying flat on his back, looking up at the passing lights from cars through the window as they moved hypnotically across the ceiling, over and over, as tthe inner cheeks of his arse suddenly were prised open and exposed above his bound thighs, spread wide. With intent concentration John studied him, the ropes shifting slightly but giving him no chance for the slightest response to the vertiginous change in orientation. His head was spinning and he felt breathless as the sudden movement put unanticipated tension on the chains, and the clamps squeezed. He shouted, might have screamed, but his cock knew better.

“Look how hard you are for me. Or. . . was it that man’s fist on you that you wanted? Is that really why you rushed ahead? Did you want someone else’s hands hurting you— someone new, some stranger, making you bleed?”

“ _No,_ _nononono—no_ ,” he cried, his heart pounding like a hammer in his bound chest, throbbing pulse in the palms of his sweaty hands, filling the last possible centimetre of his swollen cock so that it would burst, probably, if John didn’t have mercy on him soon. Mercy that he hadn’t earned. He tried to shake his head, the red rope crowning his forehead making his movements minute and strained. He wanted John’s thick cock stuffed in his mouth, down his throat, his hands cradling his heavy balls, gagging on it, the tiny wound on his lip opening up again with the violence of John’s throat-fucking, making it his own mark now, to show John what he felt, prove that nothing and no one else could move him in the slightest.

John had other ideas. The rose went up, then swiftly down, just at the delicate junction of flesh of where his right arse cheek met the top of his thigh, and the pain was obliterating everything, there was nothing but his tormented nerve endings jangling through every inch of his body, and everything went white. The pain rocketed up his arsehole, shook his clamped balls, slid up over his cock as he tried to arch up beneath his bindings and clenched his teeth over the rope to stop himself coming when John hadn’t given him leave. He knew what was coming next but this time John put all his weight behind it, the impact on his left arse cheek sending an earthquake shudder inside his arse, up his flaming cock, deep in his chest. Sherlock watched John watching the matching rose marks rising up, flushed-ruddy-hot, pink-and-white on his bare needy arse that felt exposed and icy cold and hot all at once, wide open and wanting. John turned a lever and his legs spread wider still. He was a tightly bound, helpless bundle of fire and pain and need, and tears leaked from the corner of his eye from sheer desperation.

“Did you like that,” John asked softly, his hands on Sherlock’s ankles, warm and reassuring.

Sherlock’s mouth had run dry over the gag, all he could do was whine and try to nod his head urgently, almost at the end of his tether, everything, his arse, his cock, his ribcage, his heart, his mind all unfolding, unspooling, opening themselves up to John. John petted his stinging arse lightly, then gently moved his hand under his balls. Sherlock held his breath, waiting for him to squeeze. But instead he very slowly and gently loosened the clamps, first one, than the other, and pressed his hand firmly against the thin tender skin where the blood rushed and throbbed at John’s will.

He sobbed a little at the severity of it, the removal of the clamps always leaving him torn between longing and almost unbearable relief. The other clamps were released just as tenderly, letting the chains fall with a soft jingle to the floor, John’s strong, competent hands pressing him down, down to relieve the shock, merciful after all despite his temper of just moments ago, his jealous lust slaked by his suffering and by the beautiful marks left by the rose that he could barely see glimpses of in the mirror as John stood between his legs, bent over possessively, as he loosened the rope around his forehead now, then finally the gag, pulling it slowly, carefully from between his teeth, massaging his jaw with his thumb and forefinger, running his thick, skillful fingers inside his mouth to release the tension there, holding his mouth closed, letting the muscles relax further. His mouth tingled. John brought a bottle of water to his lips.

“Drink, love.” He held Sherlock’s head up as he sipped then gulped, his throat bobbing, cool water trickling along his neck, and John bent and kissed him there, fervently, lapping the water away in a trail down the thin skin of his neck where his pulse was beating so fast, shivering under John’s tongue, hot and greedy. He was panting in Sherlock’s ear, hot breath and little suppressed curses, whispered endearments that barely broke through Sherlock’s free-float on endorphin waves John had gifted him with and if he was still moaning and thrusting against the ropes to tempt John to relieve his desperate cock, or even better to give him his master’s cock to pleasure, it was almost unconsciously done.

###

John’s thumb, slick with warm lube, circled at the tight rose of his arsehole, the tender skin all around it on fire with the stings of the rose and the clamps, almost too much to bear unless John just drove into him, sure and deep, into the deepest parts of him that needed his touch most of all now.

“Please, John— I, I,” he cried, no words coming and none needed as John took himself in his slicked hand and just pushed at his hole with the tip of his velvety-stretched head, teasing, denying, withdrawing, watching Sherlock quiver and moan and sweat under the ropes with his legs in the air, utterly helpless. But John was starting to lose control, Sherlock saw it in the unraveling of something dark and covetous and yet tender in his eyes, a flicker of want, of lust and more than lust.

“Yes,” John groaned as he thrust balls-deep, pressing him open, ripe and hot and Sherlock shouted exultantly as the exquisite thick stretch and fullness obliterated the other stings and burns. Being forced open, held motionless, nothing but a tranche for John’s pleasure, made him blush hot all over again, and then John was driving home in just that spot, that tender hot nub inside that met John’s probing head so perfectly, John’s hand on his tight leaking cock now, stroking it gently, letting him savour that exquisite hovering on the edge of his onrushing climax, masterfully holding him right there, slowing it, shaping it, everything glowing and expanding like John was pouring warm thick golden honey over him, into him, dripping with it, and they shuddered there on the edge together, eyes locked, panting, John pausing, stilling, the skin of John’s thighs rubbing at his rose marks, pain-pleasure-pain, his cock swelling that faction more to make the pink ring of his hole feel stretched and desperate.

“I can’t get enough— of you,” John gasped, his hand squeezing his cock with a little twist, panting hot over his belly, cock pistoning, deeper, Sherlock gasping, breathless. “I can’t— I can’t ever have all of you, there’s always farther to go,” he growled, pulling out and just pounding into him now, and Sherlock took him in, wider, mesmerised. “I wanted to tie you— tie you like this because I can’t hold you, not all of you, and it’s still not enough. _Never—_ “

Sherlock let himself fall slack under the ropes, let John take him without reserve, without restraint. He moaned, on the knife-edge of his orgasm, nearly blind with it, flying. John bent low, drove in deeper, kissed and sucked and bit at his throat, then pulled at his ropes until he captured his lower lip, bit it hard, and with a violent thrust cried his climax into his hot, rope-stretched mouth, and Sherlock spilled over into John’s clenched fist, the orgasm strange and sharp, jolting through him like an electric shock, his limbs helpless in the ropes to jitter and shake with the climax, that helplessness and confinement which seemed to focus and multiply the waves of pleasure, and John was still hard, and fucked him straight through the orgasm as he cried out, stroke after stroke.

Finally John’s cock started to soften, and John’s corded muscles draped across his bound torso started to slacken, too. Their perspiration ran together, slick between their chests. John reached up, petted at his blotchy cheekbone, smoothed his hair, ran his fingers over Sherlock’s swollen lips. Now that the waves of climax were fading to pleasurable, luxurious warmth, the rope bindings began to feel uncomfortable and his claustrophobia came creeping back.

Before his numbed, bitten mouth could form the word, John straightened and stumbled on unsteady legs to find the sharp fireman’s scissors.

“You deserve not to wait for me to untie all these beautiful knots,” John said. “You look — you’re incredible, do you know that? But next time, I think I’ll make you watch me do it. ”

Sherlock’s head lolled to the side, and he took a deep, relaxed breath. He was still floating, the words registering but no response formed on his lips. He sighed, feeling delightfully, indecently used.

“Hmmmm. I could. . . watch you do. . . anything right now, John. But I might fall asleep,” he admitted. The adrenaline-and- endorphin-fuelled tide was slowly receding, leaving in its place a profound, warm, safe sensation that only John could give him.

John kissed him lingeringly on the lips, warm and tender, and stroked his cheek and chin, wiping away sweat and dried tears. “And you will sleep. You can watch me cut, if you want.”

Sherlock did watch, drowsy and fascinated and without the slightest twinge of concern as John expertly slid the ultra-sharp blades of the shears under the ropes, and swiftly but carefully snipped them free. The feeling of the taut ropes falling free from his body was strangely euphoric; he felt newly born, like his skin was freshly minted, blood rushing, tingling below the compression marks that criss-crossed his alabaster skin like pink ribbons.

While John moved swiftly over his chest and arms with the gleaming silver shears, Sherlock observed them together in the mirror, saw the still-distinct red rose prints on his thighs and the crease of his buttocks. He felt marked, grateful, and proud.

John pushed the lever that raised the bench up, and slowly he was brought back up to a seated posture. His arse stung and throbbed where the rose had struck him and he sucked in a rueful gasp. His head swam a little. John held him close and steady to raise him to his feet.

“Can you walk to the bedroom, love, or just to the sofa?”

“Bed. Please. John.”

John held him steady, taking his weight across his broad shoulders until they reached Sherlock’s bed, with its cool crisp sheets. John gently embraced him all the way down and arranged his nerveless limbs on the bed, leaving enough room for him to slide in beside him. He pressed a kiss to his temple, to his throat, breathing in deep, the last of his gorgeous musky scent before he made him clean again. Then he disappeared into the bathroom and emerged with warm wet flannels, and very softly and sweetly wiped Sherlock clean, with ardent attention to his most sensitive spots, careful not to abrade the tender places where the clamps had left still-angry little marks that would still be there tomorrow, and the day after that. He wiped between the cheeks of his arse, pushing the clean flannel in just a little to pull away the stickiness there. Sherlock felt a throb down there, just from the feel of John’s hands on him, and the softness of the flannel, and the tenderness of his touching, and blushed, knowing John knew it. John just petted his hair and tucked the clean sheet around him.

“Try not to sleep yet, love. You need something sweet in you.”

Sherlock grinned crookedly, too weak to make a quip about that, and John returned with a surprise, two glasses of wine and two white fluted ramekins on a tray, that proved to be creme brûlées from Angelo’s.

“Can you sit up a little?” John asked in that soft, comforting voice, so different to just minutes ago, when it had seemed nothing short of devouring Sherlock alive would suffice to quench his need. Sherlock scooted upright, and John plumped pillows behind him so that he could lean against the headboard.

“Conveniently, my back was entirely spared,” Sherlock said.

“Was I not thorough enough for you, then,” John said, mock-serious. “Wait till next time.”

He offered Sherlock a spoonful of the sweet, thick vanilla cream but Sherlock was too proud to be spoon-fed, even by John, even now, and he gave a breathless little laugh and pushed his hand away, letting John watch him lick his own spoon with his pink tongue, and wash it down with the wine. It felt marvelous, the sugar and wine like a magic tonic, spreading warmth and comfort through his veins. Only after he was satisfied that Sherlock had had is fill did John eat and drink his own portions, and Sherlock watched his forearm tremble just a little, shaking the wine glass. John was completely exhausted, and trying to hide it until he fell asleep, Sherlock reckoned, so he promptly closed his eyes, hoping John would let himself go too.

There was a peaceful tinkling and clinking of china and glassware as John tidied the dishes with that old military habit of keeping everything in the bedroom utterly clean and orderly. Then Sherlock felt the heavy warmth of John’s body sink into the bed beside him at last, spooning him from behind, an arm thrown across his shoulder, careful not to press against his tender nipples and reddened, still-stinging arse, pressing his mouth in an open kiss, reverently, against the nape of Sherlock’s neck, feeling Sherlock’s breath becoming slower, more even. As he sank into slumber, Sherlock remembered what he needed to say, and surfaced long enough to murmur through sugar-wine lips on a tongue still roughened from John’s rope,

“You do. . . hold all of me, John. You always. . . have.”

John shushed him, his mouth pressed against his sharp shoulderblades, lightly petting Sherlock’s tangled hair.

“Do I?” His heart expanded, almost painfully. It seemed incredible, improbable.

But Sherlock was already dreaming.

 


End file.
